Earlier this month, British Columbia residents witnessed political awkwardness at a level unusual even by West Coast standards when a special prosecutor cleared B.C. Solicitor General Kash Heed of wrongdoing in a criminal investigation. Mr. Heed was re-appointed to cabinet later that day, only to re-resign the next morning after the special prosecutor stepped down as a result of his law firm’s $1,000 contribution to the Heed campaign shortly before the last provincial election.

The special prosecutor has stated that he was aware of his law firm’s donation early on. However, he did not consider it an apparent or perceived . . . [more]

This past March, I was fortunate to get some face time with one of the senior directors for Thomson Reuters’ new Print and Advanced Media division to talk about business. Among the many topics to be discussed was that particularly irksome one, the future of print. When we kicked off our conversation, the director acknowledged that she had had some feelings of trepidation when she signed on to help run a division that seemingly—excuse the pun—has a limited shelf life.

I understood where she was coming from, particularly since I’d just seen Thomson Reuters’ 2009 financial report released the . . . [more]

Between the government’s withdrawal of funding for NGOs that provide maternal health programs overseas, and a proclaimed emphasis on maternal health at the upcoming G8, some in Canada are wondering if we’re heading to a new vote on abortion.

Liberal MP Paul Szabo of Mississauga South said,

Is (a vote) inevitable? I would say yes.

If such a vote was held today, what would the outcome be? . . . [more]

Welcome to the newly refurbished Slaw. We’ve freshened up the design — after three years. We’ve added some new functionality, particularly when it comes to choosing how you subscribe to Slaw. Just take a look at the column to your right to learn about all of this.

And we’ve added a new left column for, well, our new Columns. Starting today, we’re bringing you a fresh column every day, written by experts on the topics — Legal Publishing, the Practice of Law, Legal Information, Outsourcing, Legal Marketing, Justice Issues, Legal Technology, and e-Discovery.

All of this more means “a bit . . . [more]

“Slow is the new fast.”

Maybe.

When it comes to cooking, slow is newly fashionable, it’s true. But when it comes to computer speeds, not so much. And so far as travel is concerned… it’s problematic.

Everyone knows that jet travel nowadays is an increasingly gruesome experience, certainly if you fly steerage as most of us do. And even if you’re a first or business class flier, the dreary ordeal of checking in, checking baggage, and being checked in one or more security lineups, is enough to take the edge off any interest in, let alone excitement at, going somewhere . . . [more]

The surviving terrorist from the Mumbai event has been sentenced to hang. The story is online at the Guardian. India currently has 52 people on “death row,” awaiting execution of their sentences. I hadn’t realized that India has not carried out a sentence of capital punishment since 2004, and prior to that not for nine years.

China, with a roughly similar number of citizens, but where the data on capital punishment are secret, is estimated to kill somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people a year through the legal process.

One of the reasons cited for the infrequency of hangings . . . [more]

I attended an excellent conference session this week at the CALL/ACBD/MichALL Conference in Windsor. The session, titled Media Monitoring and Current Awareness: Tools in the Information Explosion. There was a panel of speakers including Casian Moscovici from NATIONAL Public Relations, Jillian Taylor a Librarian from Fasken Martineau, and Connie Crosby of Crosby Group Consulting (and Slaw too of course). Some presentation materials are already posted.

Media monitoring and current awareness take up a lot of time in the daily routine for the library staff at my firm. The pressures of knowing immediately when something critical is taking place have been . . . [more]

Earlier this week, I was at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in Windsor, where I had the opportunity to hear Pierre-Paul Lemyre from LexUM.

He was speaking about the Guidelines for Canadian Court Web Sites being developed by the Canadian Centre for Court Technology.

He mentioned that the Centre is organizing a Canadian Forum on Court Technology in Ottawa on September 22 and 23.

The final version of those web site guidelines should be about ready by then. Slaw contributor Patrick Cormier described the process for developing those guidelines in January 2010. . . . [more]

As you might have expected, the Library of Congress has put together resources relevant to the nomination of Elena Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court. There you’ll find articles and books she’s written, relevant congressional documents, a collection of material from the web, half a dozen transcripts of her oral arguments before the Supreme Court, and some videos of and about her.

For those unfamiliar with Ms Kagan, who is currently the Solicitor General of the United States, Wikipedia has a good potted biography.

Somewhat like baseball statistics — you know: “the longest game ever played during rain in . . . [more]

Airport full-body security scanners raise many legal concerns, and while this isn’t exactly a new issue, it made headlines recently by raising employment law concerns—particularly with respect to workplace harassment and violence. However, the more publicized issues that this technology raises are privacy and human rights concerns.

One of the unique requirements that we have in North America to be called to the bar is the articling process, the merits of which have been discussed here. And we have seen law students try to use social media to get these positions.

But I still know an astonishing number of students from the class of 2010 that do not have any articling position at all. Not just from my school, but across Ontario and the country. So here’s my attempt to try and do something about it. . . . [more]

A recent English case considered when an email message is received, for the purpose of accepting an offer of a contract. Thomas v BPE Solicitors, [20100 EWHC 306 (Ch). (The relevant parts of a very long decision are at paras 85 – 90.)

In short, the court held that the postal rule did not apply to an email, as it had been established by authority that it did not apply to other instantaneous forms of communication, like telexes (Entores [1955] 2 Q.B. 327 and Brinkibon [1983] 2 A.C. 34). That said, was the mail received for legal purposes . . . [more]